This invention relates to golfbags offering improved spill-resistant balance during shoulder carrying, the actuating means employing weight of the golfclubs; and more specifically, it relates to auto-deploy/auto-retract bipod-legs for oblique support of the golfbag upon the grass turf.
Heretofore, it has been a known problem that many golfbags achieve only a very tenuous degree of balance while the golfbag is being carried via strap slung over one's shoulder. The center-of-gravity balance of the golfbag being often increasingly destabilized with the accumulation of additional heavy headed clubs being carried within, but extending forward for the golfbag. Background research discovery provides some prior patent-art regarded as germane to this disclosure, for example U.S. Pat. No. 5,303,888 (filed: April 4, 1994) contemplates a golfbag having bipod-legs which are automatically extended from the body of the golfbag by virtue of the weight of the golfclubs being borne from within the golfbag. As the golfbag is manually repositioned vertically from the near horizontal carry position, the full weight brunt of the contained golfclubs thus comes to bear down (via natural force of gravity) upon the special weight-sensitive linkage actuating apparatus located within the confines of the cylindrically rigid fixed-length golfbag, thereby causing the bipod-legs to extend for conveniently supporting the golfbag resting inclined about 30-degrees (from vertical) upon the grass turf. Conversely, when the golfbag is lifted away via the carry-handle or the shoulder carry-strap, the near horizontal carry attitude thus assumed acts to relieve much of the golfclubs weight brunt, resulting in insufficient gravity-force to maintain the bipod-legs extended, and the legs thus automatically bias retractably against the golfbag's exterior wall. However, an inherently defective characteristic of this golfbag's actuating-mechanism resides in the positional condition of the golfclubs when the golfbag is tipped toward a more nearly horizontal carry attitude, whereby the golfclubs actually shift (lift) slightly forward (outward) of the golfbag's aperture end. This weight-shift bias thus tends to aggravate an already slightly unstable carry condition, wherein excessive golfclub head-weight projecting to far forward relative to one's shoulder can result in the golfbag's club content being spilled out (seemingly to most user's and their golfing partners as a mere clumsy accident) forward upon the ground.
It should also be noted, that in many other patented golfbags having articulated bipod-legs, such as typical of U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,152,483, 5,156,366, 5,178,273, 5,236,085, the actuating mechanism embodies a ground impinging "toe" of such small surface-area (footprint), that in many instances the toe simply penetrates down into the tiny surface undulations of the grassy golfcourse, thus failing to actuate the bipod deploy mechanism until the entire assembly is necessarily lifted away to a location which does finally operate the toe actuator device.
Therefore, in full consideration of the preceding patent analysis, there is determined a need for an improved form of device to which the patent has been largely addressed. The instant inventor hereof believes their newly improved device, commercially referred to as the NoSpill-golfbag currently being developed for production under auspices of the BuddyBag Mfg/Mkt. Co., exhibits certain advantages as shall be revealed in the subsequent portion of this instant disclosure.